Don't gain the world and lose your soul.
Exit Festival. 2009.

The sun rises over the masses at the Petrovaradin on the fourth and final day of Exit.

My cup is far beyond overflowing as I sit in this coffee shop, back in Belgrade. It was overflowing before I even got on the bus to Novi Sad last Friday. After four-plus days up in northern Serbia, the ground around my cup is as damp as a Vietnamese rice paddy. It should be illegal for one person to have this much fun. And it should be a crime against humanity for tens of thousands to all have this much fun together.

Serbia is a small, landlocked country that is far away from America, and even farther from the American consciousness. Those who have even heard of this place probably know only bad things: Milosevic, Kosovo, NATO bombs, Bosnian Serbs, genocide, The Hague, communism, fascism, death, intrigue, and of course, cigarettes. And it really is a pity, because if they'd only come visit for themselves, they would see that this, this is the place to be.

Especially for four days every July, when all the good that is in the worlds of those who love music, dancing and revelry all converge upon an old Austro-Hungarian military fortress on the Danube River known as the Petrovaradin.

The Petrovaradin is Novi Sad, as the London Bridge is London, the Great Wall is Beijing, or the Coca Cola Clock Tower is Arusha, Tanzania. Technically, it's not in Novi Sad, but in a separate municipality creatively named Petrovaradin as well. It's only once you cross the Danube that you arrive in Novi Sad proper, a beatiful city that stands as a beacon of culture for all of Vojvodina, a semi-autonmous Serbian region that has almost as many Hungarians as it does Serbs. The Exit Festival, which is a massive party that replaces the memories of encamped armies with the vibrations of music and thousands upon thousands of dancing feet, takes place inside of the Petrovaradin fortress, and it just celebrated its tenth anniversary this past week (or, if you asked the lovely Petrovaradin native who works for Exit, Indira, its 11th, but that is another debate over when, technically, the wonder that is Exit really first began).

My biggest fear about returning to Serbia after more than two years away from my favorite country in the world was that, quite simply, it would suck. Trying to recreate a magical time in your life is an endeavor wrought with risk. No matter what you tell yourself, it's not place that touches the heart, but the people in that place. And people have a funny way of changing over time. These changes can lead to disappointment when you find that what your memory tries to keep alive actually perished long ago. I learned this when I went back to UVa for a weekend a year after I graduated, and found that it was not the same place that had existed in my head during a year of traveling the world. And so the fear that Serbia, Round II, would be just like that Foxfield weekend in Charlottesville loomed large in my mind as my plane touched down on the tarmac in Belgrade this past July 4.

And then Exit happened. And it was better than anything I ever imagined.

I won't try to get into the details too much at the moment, because I don't have time to write War & Peace. Unfortunately there is a little thing called "work" that is calling my name. And after reveling in the pure bliss that is ignorance of what was happening on the work front for five full days, I've got a shit ton of emails I've got to read before I log on from Belgrade to do my job. But there will be stories, and they will be plentiful.

This, though, is the main message: it's not the place, it's the people; and there is a certain wisdom you accrue from reminders of this message. The relationships that you can form when you're traveling are so special. It's not that I don't love America, or that I don't want to be in America, as some of my friends from back in the day have at times alleged. It's that being on the road in another part of the world brings out something in people that is hard to find when you're lost amidst the routine, and the mundane of everyday existence. It brings out the best in people; it opens up their hearts, and their minds; it brings them together, in a way that lasts forever.

It refreshes my soul. It makes me remember why it is that I work. I work to make money so that I can travel and meet more people, form more relationships, learn more about the world and the moment and the collective human experience. It's not about silver and gold alone, but about the entire package. If you can use money to gain wisdom -- and love and laughter -- you have, as the old knight in the third "Indiana Jones" movie says, "chosen ... wisely."

For me, Exit was an affirmation. I have chosen ... wisely. Four days of all night parties, three hours a day of sleep, and a series of moments that I knew, as they were happening, wouldn't last forever, except for in my mind, in my heart, and most importantly, in my soul.

The best things in life are those that words cannot possibly describe. It's a warmness in your bones, in your spirit, that makes you take deep breaths and close your eyes and just ... feel. The moment. The moments. And you can't put a price tag on stuff like that.

(Well, you can, but I'd really rather not think about it. A flight to Serbia ain't cheap. But it is certainly worth it in the end.)

It's like Bob Marley said, "Don't gain the world and lose your soul. Wisdom is better than silver and gold."